India, which accounts for the largest number of road accident deaths globally, needs to have in place proper vehicle regulations and nominate a lead agency to take charge, says Martin Small, a road safety expert from Australia, in an interview to BusinessLine . The Principal of Martin Small Consulting, who has advised governments in Australia and New Zealand, apart from Vietnam, Ukraine and Tamil Nadu through WHO and World Bank funded projects on road safety issues, recently visited India.
What are some of the most important steps that have to be taken to improve the road safety scenario in India?
Australia started talking about road safety about 40 years ago. Now, we are good at road safety management, enforcement, driving behavioural changes, among others. We can provide some short-cuts that can help India achieve improvements faster.
If a country, state or city needs to take this issue forward, you have to nominate a lead agency, an arm of a government to lead the charge and pull all arms of government and all business, community together — it could be in transport, or police. That should be the engine of the activity.
Speed limits are another important area. In Australia and New Zealand, we realised how critical speed limits are in driving safety. We have lowered speed limits to 30 kmph in heavy areas.
For long we have focused on faster movement of vehicles. Now, it is time to look at the movement of people. Mobile CCTVs are better for speed control rather than CCTVs at fixed places. These should also be connected in the back-end to the owner of the vehicle, his licence.
What are the investments that go into setting up these back-end systems?
These systems layer on top of each other. In countries like Australia, there were lots of investments in sophisticated IT systems in 1990s. We made a lot of motor vehicle-related transactions online. India is talking about the new Motor Vehicle Bill — all of that requires system investments.
Should a certain component of infrastructure finance go towards road safety?
Yes. In Australia, we are increasingly moving towards designing roads in such a way that there are minimal deaths or injuries.
What are the countries that have the most strict road safety regulations?
Although there is no set template, I have a checklist of things that I evaluate road, infrastructure, capacity of the government to deliver on road safety: do they use international road assessment protocol (iRAP) to gauge road safety and what is the vehicle safety environment? In these areas, India is moving.
Vehicle regulation is important. There is inequality between safety of different road users who get hit — inside the vehicle and outside such as pedestrians and cyclists.
This was also the case in Australia when we realised car owners scooped most of the safety benefits. So, technology solutions are required, where India can learn from Australia.
What are the technology solutions? Were they driven by regulation in Australia?
There are pedestrian protection standards for vehicles so that damage to pedestrian is minimal, although every collision between car and pedestrian can have different outcomes. Motor vehicle manufacturers have invested billions in understanding safety requirements. At this point, regulations need to say everybody should get the benefits of these technologies.
The technology solutions were driven by market in Australia. Vehicle manufacturers are investing even in collision avoidance technologies now and people are buying these cars. But in India, it is important for high-end safety regulations to come in.
How important is the driver’s qualification in ensuring safety?
The driver has a responsibility, the transport company who the driver works for has a responsibility, and the customer engaging the transport company has a responsibility. The customer has a higher level of responsibility. Corporations are increasingly realising and saying that they are a part of this chain.
In the US, UK and in Australia, groups of companies realise that they are exposed to road traffic injuries and have come together to improve their supply chain. Road safety injuries’ tentacles extend everywhere including these firms, which can be risky for their reputation.